650D - dusty case!

Associate
Joined
1 Jan 2012
Posts
1,946
Location
Scottish Borders - UK
Opened up my 650D today and was surprised by the amount of dust build up.

I can only assume that either the front filter isn't the best or the dust is getting in the top section. There is a 240 rad up there, but there's still a lot of mesh area uncovered for dust to fall through!

Anyone experienced the same thing?
 
I have a 650D with a rad installed at the top. I fitted 2 Silverstone magnetic fan filters to the top. 6 months later i opened my case for a clean and it was spotless. All I had to do was clean the various fan filters on my case. :D
 
Ok. If you have fan filters on every intake, then you should not be getting dust in your case if you check every 6 months say. The mesh on the 650D fan filters is quite fine, so should be stopping the dust.

Having said that, maybe your room is simply a lot dustier than mine.
 
Silver, You have a fan filter at the top and Monkeyspaz5000 does not. Seems like this is the only place that dust might be entering (while machine is switched off)
 
Silver, You have a fan filter at the top and Monkeyspaz5000 does not. Seems like this is the only place that dust might be entering (while machine is switched off)

Yeah. I have 2 fan filters at the top as my radiator fans are intakes. My PC case is housed in a desk though. It sits on a desk floor and has a desk roof above it, so nothing can really drop in.
 
Isnt the 650D designed so that the top (with radiator) is intake and the rear used for exaust? Im sure I saw an official Corsair video advising to install as such
 
you have more air being forced out via the fans than you have being forced in.

this renders the fan filter on the front of the case useless. the slight negative pressure means unfiltered air full of dust will be drawn in the various cracks etc to equalise the pressure
 
you have more air being forced out via the fans than you have being forced in.

this renders the fan filter on the front of the case useless. the slight negative pressure means unfiltered air full of dust will be drawn in the various cracks etc to equalise the pressure

Ah - I need to get some filters and swap the top fans about then.

Thanks
 
you have more air being forced out via the fans than you have being forced in. This renders the fan filter on the front of the case useless. the slight negative pressure means unfiltered air full of dust will be drawn in the various cracks etc to equalise the pressure.

I have front as intake and top and rear as exhaust. Top has H100. The front is 200mm. The top is 2x120mm and rear is 120mm. Are you saying that this is going to create negative pressure and hence dust and air being drawn in?

There are so many conflicting points of view on this. I went for top exhaust because (1) hot air rises and (2) so that I wasn't blowing the warm air from rad back onto mb, memory and gpu. Is switching the H100 on top to intake going to adversely affect temps?

I've had my 650D for four months now and I don't want to end up with a case full of dust. Already noticing the front filter going grey but haven't noticed dust anywhere else though I'm sure the rad is full of it as it is setup as a push exhaust. Speaking of which I need to figure out how to clean that when the time comes.
 
^That configuration will bring in dust, yes. If you think about it logically:

If the 'out' fans are pushing more air than the 'in' fans, after each second the amount of air in the case is less. i.e. the pressure drops. The case isn't pressurised so air is drawn in through unfiltered gaps to equalise the pressure.

I'd personally reverse the rear fan to intake and filter it and leave the h100 as exhaust from the roof. If you have a non-exhaust gpu cooler you may have to forget that though as they can benefit from the rear fan exhaust. (Although I was fine with 680 SLI in that config in a 600t).

Edit: I like to stick to the 'hot air rises' way of doing things, hence the above. I think corsair say to use the h100/i as intake which is BS imo as by using an AIO you are already removing airflow from the other components on the motherboard and now they are basically saying 'bathe it in warm air' in order to get the best CPU temps.
 
Last edited:
Yes. Rear intake is a possibility and it would easier to filter that than the giant grill at the top. For GPU I have 2x MSI R7970 Lightning Boost Edition. So, yes, non-exhaust. My temps are great at the moment to be honest so dust is only concern. I suppose I could always switch the rear and see what happens to temps under load. Thanks.
 
Just read your edit. Yeah. I don't know what to think about all this to be honest. I've read a lot of material by CorsairGeorge (George Makris) who designed all the Corsair cases. According to him the larger the case the larger the body of air and therefore the greater the buffer for absorbing heat giving cooler temps and this makes sense. The 650D is large and simply due to that will provide better temps.

Regarding intake vs exhaust cases tend to be very intake heavy with multiple fans on front for intake or one large fan and a single small fan on rear. So the decision point comes down to the top which will have either one large fan or two small fans. I have heard George say on another forum that in his testing having the top rad as intake does give lower gpu temps. As to why - that is the big question.

Maybe it's because the direct air flow onto the gpu backplate helps dissipate heat and encourage circulation. The air is then pulled out of the rear. If you think about it - without the top being an intake, at least in the 650D, there is no directed airflow at the top half of the case - only through negative pressure does air get circulated throughout. My dominator platinum memory can get fairly hot on the surface under load too so there is the question of whether that would benefit from directed air flow but then the directed airflow from the rad is obstructed by the rad unless you have push pull in which case the lower fans will provide effective directed airflow. So the question really is - is pressure based circulation better than directed airflow on the same components whether that is with warm air or cooler air because ultimately does it all get neutralised in terms of temps anyway?

And now as you can appreciate I have not clarified the issue in the slightest and only confused it more. This is a mystery to all but case designers who have the means of testing all kinds of configurations. I don't know. I'd be interested in hearing more. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom